Bard of bedroom when lights are off

Irsquom guessing the male star in heterosexual porn is like the hissygiggly pointless interviewer in a celebrity chat show you just have to toleratemdashbecause yoursquore interested in the actual guestldquoThe term isnrsquot porn itrsquos eroticardquo the male lead of several desi straight adult entertainment films Shakespeare 29 says when we meet over coffee in Juhu The distinction between the preferred name for his genre could well be in the context in which itrsquos shot I guess Or indeed the quality of lighting in the roomFor instance skinshows on OTT platforms in India actually took off Shakespeare tells me ldquoAfter the nudity in Sacred Games 2018 on Netflix which had such Alist stars in them Other producers felt if thatrsquos okay so should be whatever they put out toordquoShakespeare hasnrsquot starred on Netflix The topmost platform in the largely femaleled erotica industry of which hersquos king is Nueflix Many other OTTs he lists mysteriously named after fruits Kiwi Litchi MangoAs I write this videos on my Instagram show serial entrepreneur Raj Kundra returning homemdashgranted bail after over three months of imprisonment Kundra ran an adult entertainment OTT called Hotshots Technically consumption of porn isnrsquot illegal in Indiamdashits production and distribution are In the same way that prostitution isnrsquot bannedmdashsolicitation isShakespeare primarily sees himself as an actor with much expertise in not just performing sexual scenes but also how they appear camera friendly ldquoWhen you kiss on screen for instance your jawline should be tilted at a particular angle with lips moving a certain wayrdquo Sometimes he forgets when hersquos with an actual loveinterest and starts reenacting the camera way he laughsThe bed where Shakespeare pretends to make love in filmsmdashusually at a hired bungalow for a setmdashis surrounded by three cameras With as many assistants and other crewmembers and a director to issue instructions if needed He casually chillschats with his female costars before shoot so itrsquos not awkward when the cameras are on The heroine here is usually paid about twice or thrice the heroThe top female leads he says anyway have personal apps of their own The unlikely yet massive mainstreaming and commercial success of Canadian born pornstar Sunny Leone in India Shakespeare submits couldrsquove ignited similar local ambitions Several new actors also get approached basis the naturequality of their Insta feeds for instanceThe boom time really occurred with the advent of lockdownpandemic Shakespeare himself joined the adult entertainment industry serially shooting a film after another thereafter only in July 2020 He altogether quit in Feb 2021By June since Kundrarsquos arrest in particular the entire scene had gone underground Where did they go ldquoLaying low I suppose But I must tell you itrsquos Kolkata not Mumbai that is the flagbearer of Indian eroticardquo Shakespeare saysYoursquod think Shakespeare is his alias or screenname as it weremdashnope His parents named him so after the Bard of Avon He suitably graduated in English literature which his father teaches at a university in Odisha Some of his videos on aggregator sites he tells me have had 25 million plus views Which is higher than a lot of stuff that is also debatably porn but is peddled as various other media instead Shakespearersquos work is quite unpretentious that way He also insists on a script Doesnrsquot seem like he cares too much for extreme validation or universal respect Although it does hurt him he says when more mainstream production housesmdashlike Excel Entertainment recently or a show that he nearly bagged for Zee5mdashsend him regret notes after an online background check on his past worksA gasstation guy here a bystander on the road elsewhere offer him a knowing smilemdashsoon as they realise theyrsquove seen him somewhere and of course where His online followersfans are mainly South Asians from across the globeI tell Shakespeare about my hunch thatmdashfrom social media dating apps to desi erotica online small towns big cities includedmdashthere is a slight lowering of the guard of shameguilt and a sexual revolution underway in India That you can only sense since itrsquos unseen enough to remain under the radar offline Shakespeare agreesPost Kundrarsquos arrest a lot of TV channels had contacted Shakespeare to speak on the adult entertainment industry He flatly refused given the ridiculously cheapsalacious content that gets sold as news on TV in India He got in touch with me on Facebook Shakespeare says to really bust a bunch of blatant myths to do with his line of workldquoFor one the production crews are as professional safe and friendly as yoursquod expect any to be I havenrsquot come across a single female costar over so many shoots who was brought in through any coercionA notarised contract is duly drafted and signed Besides a video shot with actors consenting to terms and conditions before a camera That those films subsequently fetch lakhs and crores to producers which the actors see none of after a onetime fee does create friction Including fake FIRs that you donrsquot hear about Ultimately we all do what we do for the paycheck donrsquot we Donrsquot yourdquo HmmmMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper